In Western culture, we have a deeply conditioned belief that mental functions and physical functions are two separate issues. This is evident in the way we speak about “mental health” as a separate category from “physical health.” In fact, we call “physical health” simply “health,” with “mental health” as a separate entity.
This is slowly starting to change, but it remains the dominant narrative, especially when it comes to discussions of productivity, and especially in the realm of work knowns as “knowledge work.”
Broadly speaking, knowledge work is any type of work that primarily involves using our minds, intellect, and creative capacity. I prefer to call it “cognitive work.”
We seem to have an expectation that no matter what’s happening in our life or in our bodies, we should be able to sit down and crank out cognitive work.
This is an unrealistic expectation.
Consider what happens when you sit down to write an essay, a legal brief, plan a course, or maybe conduct a coaching call. Assume you’ve blocked the time, you are in a space that is conducive to the work you’re about to do.
You’re good to go. Right?
Now consider what happens if you’re feeling pain in your back. Or your heart starts beating rapidly, or you feel a tightening in your chest or belly.
How well are you able to focus on the task at hand?
If you worked in a factory, on your feet all day and lifting heavy boxes or operating machines, you would likely pay more attention to that pain because it would interfere more with your tasks.
The tendency with cognitive work is to try to block it out, to call it irrelevant.
Maybe you can block out the pain for a certain amount of time, pushing it to the back of your awareness.
But it’s still there.
On some level, it’s impacting your work.
And the longer you ignore it, the more prominent it will become, until you are forced to change your actions.
The myth of cognitive work is that only the mind is involved. But this simply is not true.
No matter what you do, you are always using your body. Whether you’re sitting, standing, talking on the phone, writing at a computer, teaching a class, filming a video, or driving a car, you are using your body.
Sensations and fatigue in your body impact your cognitive capacity. The reverse is also true: having your mind weighed down with cognitive load can impact how your body moves and your physical capacity.
The mind and body are not separate entities. Everything is connected.
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